Chemical aromas got me off to a bad start. Roast, black with some white head, cat peepee. Doug's bottle.Below average mouthfeel, a little watery. More sweet than bitter. Not very drinkable. Disapointing for a black IPA, or black style anything.Pass if you see it.

A: The beer is clear dark amber in color and has a moderate amount of carbonation. It poured with a finger high off white head that consistently left a thin layer of bubbles covering the surface.S: There are aromas of citrusy hops in the nose along with some hints of roasted malts.T: The taste is balanced between flavors of dark, roasted malts and a mild amount of bitterness. The hops contribute some hints of citrus in the finish.M: It feels a bit short of medium-bodied, smooth, and crisp on the palate with a light to moderate amount of carbonation.D: The beer doesn't offer as much of a full-body or strong taste compared to other beers in the style, but these qualities and the low alcohol content make it rather sessionable.

black as night with a towering three inches of chocolate colored foam on the top of the glass. Settling slowly it left behind tons of brown lace up and down the glass. Aroma is piney hops and rich roasted malts. Touches of peat and campfire like tones coming through. Nice feel, medium carbonation and heavy enough to keep me intrested, but not overally full. Nice opening bite of piney hops come across quite nicely with a delicate dryness and touches of light hops. Quickly the roasted malts take over and offer lots of smokey and rich malty notes. Light chocolate starts to come through in the dry finish and leaves the palate searching as to which flavor dominated the most but the last gasp goes to a deep, smokey malt

Full Sail Bump In The Night: I love the name, but will I love the beer?

A rough pour brings up a massive head of khaki. I can smell light pine at arms length... and some sweetish maltiness. It's taking a long time to settle, but that's alright, a beer like this needs to warm a little bit to reveal its full character. Waiting is tough, but I want to top it off; and you can't really smell a beer through so much head. At least it shows good lacing as it settles. There we go, finally; down the side of the glass and a little slower this time. It looks almost like a Guinness at this point, but the body's much lighter - I'm guessing about 36 SRM, a dark mahogany. The pine's still there in the nose, soft and wet like underbrush. Fresh. There's a hint of gently citrusy fruit. It's not bold; I like that, it doesn't need to be. You get a suggestion of the malt as well... some toastiness and mild roastiness. It tastes the same. There's a bit of spiciness to it as well, but it's mainly light pine with a delicate spritz of grapefruit/tangerine within a gently caramel and cocoa malt base. I get some other fruit as well, and an edge of roastiness. I like that there's a quick dollop of sweet caramel along the way; and that it doesn't finish too dry and piney/resinous. It's really nicely balanced. The roastiness lingers a bit in the finish, along with some minor residual pine, and it reminds me of camping. More specifically, it reminds me of first leaving the tent in the early morning, moving out into the cold air and tossing a few pieces of kindling on the fire to get it going again - damp earth and light smoke. What's this beer called, "Cascadian Dark Ale"? Yeah, for this one I'd definitely go with that over "Black IPA". But what about its drinkability... it's "overall" character? Well I'm pretty impressed. It would have been quite easy to go sharp, bitter and resinous with this one, but it's not. It's very finely tuned - it's polished and well-rounded. The dark-malt acidity, hop resins, alcohol, and bitterness are all kept in check. Absolutely superb! Whomever created this knows what they're doing. Worth checking out!

A: The beer is a dark brown color, with a thin off-white head that fades quickly and leaves a thin lace on the glass.

S: The aroma contains some piney hops up front along with some roasted malts and a little bit chocolate and coffee.

T: The taste starts out with a dry and bitter dark chocolate flavor followed by a strong burst of grassy hops. The malt character is hearty but not too heavy. However, there isn’t much sweetness to balance things out. The after-taste is slightly bitter.

I'm still having a ton of fun exploring this style, lots of talk of what it is supposed to be and different regions making their own path. Full Sail clearly pulls it off here ... not that I had any doubt.

Pours a deep clear amber, topped with a finger of light mocha colored head. This retains with a smooth foamy look that rings the sides of the glass with rich lace. The aroma is floral and green smelling up front, with a weird coconut flavoring (that reminds me of suntan lotion) working its way in as well. Ripe fruit and cocoa accents sit underneath, while any roasted character is parked way in the back of the nose, as the hops mostly dominate this. Some sweet warmth and spicy alcohol fusels dance around on the edges of this as well.

The taste has a lot of green earthy bitterness going on with it, which layered on top of chocolate and caramel sweetness (but mostly chocolate) and a touch of smoky roast that glides along the back. That green citrus character is strong here, lingering hard in the finish with notes of dry earth and rind. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, with a sharp crispness to the carbonation that then gets more slick towards the back of the feel. Alcohol is fairly well hid in the body but at only 6.5% ABV, I was surprised by how much of this came out in the nose at times.

Honestly, this just wasn’t a very strong take on a Black Ale at all. Too much raw bitterness, too little roasted character, and an all around package here that just didn’t leave me impressed. I expected more out of Full Said with this one.

This is not so interesting a black ale, to me. It looks a lot thinner than any black ale I have seen, to date. Flavor profile is...okay. A lot of this really strikes me more as a brown ale than a black ale. There are some hop characteristics that pop in at the end of this, but it really isn't enough to save the experience. A nice "beer" to drink, but not really all that great as a black ale.

Mouth is a bit fuller bodied, fluffy like a bit of an oatmeal stout, and decent carbonation.

Overall it wasn't bad, not great, but better than what I expected for the current rating. It's in its own ballpark flavor wise, fluffy, light cocoa, nougat, and roast, nice cascade family hops, decent bitterness, maybe a bit sticky on the finish, but otherwise pretty good.

Pours an effervescent brown/walnut with 2 fingers of khaki head. Great lacing & head retention

S: Musty grain, herbal & woody hops

T: Follows the nose, rye peppery notes & crispness, plus a whisper of smoke & some grassy hops climbing up as well up front. Grassy, piney & herbal hops lead the charge, some oaky/woody, ceddary notes, a bit of nuttyness as well once warm. Finishes piney, with touches of wood ruff & pecan

MF: Medium bodied, fairly crisp, there is some smoothness as well. Some balance, the extremity of this is bringing flavors I like to the front, but dragging others to the party as well...

This kind of takes this style in a different direction compared most other examples I've had. Not a 100% in love with this, but drinkable enough

The beer pours a dark brown/black color with a thick frothy tan head that slowly fades to lacing. The aroma is decent. It has a citrus hop nose along with a bitter, roasted malt scent. It's bitter with a mild musty character. The taste is decent as well. It's overly bitter with a ton of citrus hop character. The malt content is adequate, but dwarfs the hop contribution. It has a dry, bitter, roasted malt taste that goes down quick and easy with a hop centric finish. The mouthfeel is decent. It is a medium/full bodied beer with adequate carbonation. This is a beer with much potential. It's off-balanced with too much hop character. As far as black IPAs' are concerned, this is the weakest malt content I've encountered.

Pours a deep, dark chestnut brown color with dark orange/ruby edges when held to a light and a two finger frothy light beige head. Decent retention, slowly fading into a thin lasting ring.

Earthy aroma with lots of oily pine hop character with subtle hints of citrus and a prominent roasted malt character. Slightly smokey with hints of toast, caramel, oatmeal and dark chocolate. This beer has a strange nose which is kind of standard for this style. It's earthy and hoppy at first but is quickly overtaken by the roasted malt presence. Somewhere in the middle of an IPA and a porter.

Fuller bodied than expected with a great balance of earthy fresh hops, sweet citrus and roasted malt flavor. There is a dry bitterness up front from the hops with lots of resinous oily, pine needle flavor that lingers over the roasted malt backbone into a roasted dry finish. Very faint citrus compliments the pine notes but the hop profile is mostly dry and bitter as opposed to sweet and citrus like. The hop profile is excellently balanced by a dry roasted malt backbone. Nice and toasty with subtle smokiness, hazelnut, chocolate, biscuit and toffee. The dry bitterness and sweet roasted notes continually bounce back and forth throughout the course of the bomber. Well balanced, complex and easy to drink. One of the better examples of the style I've tried so far.

Wow, a total bust by Full Sail. I"m hoping I got a bad bottle, but I won't spend money to find out.

Pours a dark brown. Glossy. Brown head consists of tiny bubbles. If it would have chunked up or provided some lacing I'd score it higher. Alas, it did neither and disappeared to a collar.

Aroma isn't very good. The hops are just drowned out...or perhaps mixed badly with...the malt. And the malt just seems stale and moldy. The cocoa is there, but it's bad, too.

Taste is a bit better. The moldy malt is cleansed a bit by the hops, but they aren't fighting too hard. I really can't put my finger on this one. I drank nearly the entire bottle just to figure out what's wrong with it. But, the last 1/4 was a drain pour. The bitterness helped it on the end, but nothing was prominent in the hops: no pine, resin, citrus, tropical, herbal...just bitter on top of bad malt.

A: The black ale is much more of a darker caramel brown, a dark nonetheless. The mysteriousness leads to a merely wispy head, never much worth mentioning. As opaque as a press conference.

S: Nicely roasted, the ale has a dark nose that doesn't skimp on the sweetness with chocolate in strong supply. Piney citrus is a sharp counterpoint to the black ale base, a welcome change of pace. Anxious for a first sip.

T: And I think that Full Sail nailed this one. The darker malts are austere, minimal with burnt toast and chocolate driving it. The hoppiness is a stark departure, adding tropical flavors and pine to the mix. The hops are more of a supporting act, content to not have to lead the beer. The mix of malt and hops drives minty flavors along with grapefruit, pine, and deep roast. I'm happy to report that this is the first Full Sail bottle that I was really into. Strong mix of the grapefruit hops and roasted malts.

M: The contrast of sweet and scorched is impressive, the darker malts drawing out the sweeter hops everytime. This one I liked.

For me, 'Bump in the Night' conjures memories of an early 90s stop-motion animation cartoon of a booger-monster who lived under the bed of a ten year old; this beer, however, with its eerily dusky complexion and crow black colour and quirky streaks of lacing that look like jagged tree branches, seems more like something out of a Tim Burton movie.

My honest first impression of the beer was that the bottle must be infected. A thorough Google search, however, turns up no evidence of the brewery acknowledging such and previous glances over others' reviews would indicate that this is a fairly common reaction. There's little evidence of hops, apart from bitter pine notes, and certainly nothing citric.

What prevails in the bouquet similarly prevails in the taste: a slightly off, creme caramel kind of sweetness that is partially obstructed by a hefty roast element and an interfering bitterness that, overlooking a tree bark-like note, has no redeeming flavour to its credit. The darker malts, too, are without proper chocolaty or coffee-ish compensation.

Things improve as it warms, but by now it's obvious that this won't be making the style's 'best of' list. In truth it starts to resemble a poorly done clone of Stone Arrogant Bastard, something that, contrary to how it might sound, actually wins the beer some favor with me. It shares the singed malts and leafy, woody-pine bitterness with faintly citrusy finish.

And so, by the second pour, marks have been upped and the overall impression becomes more positive. Still, Bump in the Night is unquestionably beneath Full Sail's usual standard of quality and makes a fairly disappointing special release. While it shows flashes of a quality Cascadian Dark Ale, it never quite reaches the heights you'd expect from a brewery situated in the heart of America's hop growing region and microbrewery haven.

Pours a nice dark brown color, nice carbonation, nice little creamy off-white head, with some nice sticky lacing left behind. The nose is pretty nice, malty, with some hop notes, with some toffee/caramel. The taste is very nice, malty, with a nice hop note thrown in, toffee/caramel. Medium Body, with a nice dry/bitter finish. Drinkable, a very nice brew for the price.